Glenn Beck: Does Congress Matter?

by T. Jefferson

Just a few short months ago you felt alone. You felt your voice didn’t matter. The frustration led you to act, to demand (many for the first time) that your voice be heard.

Look how far you’ve come. Politicians were ignoring you, now they fear you. And that’s a healthy "we will vote you out" fear, because we are awake and watching and will call those out who are not "protecting and defending" the Constitution of the United States.

Because, the purpose of a just government is to prevent plunder, not facilitate it. Anyone who stands in against corruption in the Beltway, we will stand with you — even if you’ve been part of the problem in the past. If you help clean it up, America loves repentance.

This amazing country had 56 founders — 56 brave, good, decent human beings. That’s all it took, why should it be any different today to take the country back? That’s all I’m looking for: 56 brave men and women out of the 535 in Congress today. Fifty-six "re-founders" to stand up to the corruption and the special interests in your own party. Stand up to what Washington, D.C. has become.

You aren’t going to get any publicity from this. This isn’t something where you can just latch on to the tea party movement or the 9/12 Project movement. You need to demonstrate it. We’ll keep you anonymous so we can help weed out the weasels, like those who don’t pay their taxes like Charlie Rangel or those who support corrupt organizations like ACORN and John Murtha’s airport.

You don’t know about John Murtha’s airport? It’s beautiful — according to published reports it’s got a $7 million air traffic control tower, a $14 million hangar and an $18 million state-of-the-art runway.

It’s got everything a modern airport should be equipped with — now, if they only had planes flying there. It has three flights a day and one guess where all three of the flights go to: Washington, D.C.

Thanks to Murtha, the airport has received over $150 million in taxpayer funding and then another $800,000 in stimulus money to repave an "alternate runway."

Now, for comparison: The airport in Barrow, Alaska (320 miles north of the Arctic Circle) handled 37,000 passengers last year; Murtha’s airport handled 6,700.

There was a vote today to cut off all federal funding to this waste of taxpayer money. I’m tired of hearing we are the richest country in the world; how can we not afford to help? If down your street, the person with the biggest house and the Cadillac, that goes on vacations and has the best clothing, etc., if they suddenly have their house repossessed and their cars taken away — are they the richest people in the neighborhood or just the people who spent the most money?

We aren’t the richest nation in the world. We just spent the most money.

But there is no more money. If you understand that, wouldn’t it be a no-brainer to not spend $20 million a year on an airport only one dirt-bag uses to go to Washington, D.C., for his dirt-bag deals?

All I am asking for is 56 people to help us weed them out — fifty-six.

And it’s not like the corruption is that hard to find:

— Maxine Waters’ husband was on the board of a bank that received $12 million in bailout funding, just three months after Waters helped arrange a meeting between officials at the bank and Treasury Department representatives

— Charlie Rangel has "forgotten" to pay taxes on more money ($2.4 million) than most Americans earn in a lifetime

— John Conyers had personal aides working on his wife’s election campaign — you remember Monica Conyers? She was convicted back in June on federal bribery charges in a sludge-hauling scandal. Are we that low on citizens, we can’t find people who haven’t been to jail?

— You know about his airport, but did you know that John Murtha is also linked to a lobbying firm that’s been raided twice by the FBI?

Look at the document — right there it says "a cap and trade program could generate federal receipts on the order of $100 to $200 billion annually." That is the equivalent of hiking personal income taxes by about 15 percent or $1,761 a year, per household.

OK, that was in March. Now, fast forward to April 24, 2009 when Henry Waxman (who you may remember from the Waxman-Markley energy bill) said this:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. HENRY WAXMAN, D-CALIF.: The cost of the bill that Mr. Markey and I proposed, this analysis says, will cost the average American family less than 40 cents per day

(END VIDEO CLIP)

Forty cents a day? If you look at the Treasury’s estimates — Waxman is only underestimating the cost by 1,200 percent.

Now, let’s fast forward a little and listen to President Obama’s estimate on June 25, 2009:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: In a decade the price to the average American will be about the same as a postage stamp per day.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

He too underestimated the cost by about 1,200 percent — but he was a little more careful, because he said "in a decade from now" and, he said "about the cost of a stamp." That’s one expensive stamp.

I have a question: What did the president of the United States tell the people in Congress? Did he tell them about the higher estimates (that we now know he knew about?) Or did they just keep it secret and hide it from them and the American people?

I want to show you something I said a few weeks ago — I was talking directly to Democrats and telling them to wake up because you are being bypassed. Look at all the "czars" — they don’t answer to anyone. If the president has a bunch of drinking buddies he wants to put in as special advisers and they don’t have muscle — fine, whatever.

But if they have power, then it’s a real problem.

Woodrow Wilson, a progressive just like this president, talked about ways to get things done without going around Congress. Guess what, guys? That’s what this progressive president is doing — he’s going right on around you.

When are you going to wake up?

Here’s what I said on June 30, 2009:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GLENN BECK: Senator, I have to tell you, I think — I think Congress is overplaying their hand. And more importantly, I think they are being outplayed and outmaneuvered. I think they are making themselves irrelevant to a massive new federal framework that Obama seems to be erecting in all kinds of — with all kinds of "czars" and everything else.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

I’ve been asking questions and I have another one for you, Congress: Are you becoming irrelevant? I mean, you aren’t even writing or reading the major bills being pushed, are you are being told by the powers that be how to vote — as John Conyers said about ACORN.

What are you doing, exactly?

I’m not sitting on the sidelines while America is "transformed" like the rest of the fringe media.

I kind of like what our original Founders set up, unlike others who we will get to in the next few minutes.

And if you are in Congress and watching, I encourage you to join the fifty-six. You know what’s happening better than any of us — wake up! Help us take clean up the country in our country — the special favors, the special interest. It belongs to we the people (Republican, Democrat and independent).

We can solve any crisis, any problem — health care, energy, anything — once we have honest brokers at the table who aren’t beholden to any special interest.

By thw way, we’ve already have our first of the 56 — they are now working on your behalf to root out the corruption in their own party.